Table Of ContentB
e
f
o
r
e
C Before
r
i
s
i
s
H
i
t
s
Hits
S
m
i
t
h
a
n
d Building a Strategic Crisis Plan
M
i
l
l
a
r
American Association
of Community Colleges C Larry L. Smith
o
m
One Dupont Circle, NW m
u Dan P. Millar
Suite 410 n
it
Washington, DC 20036-1176 y
C
o
www.aacc.nche.edu lle
g
e
P
ISBN-0-87117-345-X re
s
s
®
Before
CRISIS
Hits
Building a Strategic Crisis Plan
Larry L. Smith
Dan P. Millar
Community College Press®
a division of the American Association of Community Colleges
Washington, D.C.
The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) is the primary advocacy organiza-
tion for the nation’s community colleges. The association represents 1,100 two-year, associate
degree–granting institutions and more than 10 million students. AACC promotes community
colleges through six strategic action areas: national and international recognition and advocacy,
learning and accountability, leadership development, economic and workforce development,
connectedness across AACC membership, and international and intercultural education.
Information about AACC and community colleges may be found at www.aacc.nche.edu.
© 2002 American Association of Community Colleges
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including, without limitation, photocopying, recording, or
by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher:
Community College Press
American Association of Community Colleges
One Dupont Circle, NW
Suite 410
Washington, DC 20036
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN 0-87117-345-X
Contents
1
What Is a Crisis and Why Should I Care? 1
2
Sources of Crisis in Higher Education 11
3
Building the Crisis Management Team 19
4
Building the Crisis Communications Plan 27
5
Practice with the Plan 41
6
Crisis Communication Is Strategic:
Identifying Key Audiences and
Preparing to Communicate with Them 47
7
Plans That Work 59
8
When Someone Else’s Crisis Becomes Yours 65
9
Smoldering Crises Are the Biggest Threat 73
Appendix A 81
Sample Document: Media Policies and Guidelines
Appendix B 89
Sample Document: Debriefing and
Evaluation Questions
Resources 91
Index 107
About the Authors 111
1
What Is a Crisis and
Why Should I Care?
As a college administrator, you will never face a crisis that someone else has
not already experienced.
And you will never encounter a crisis you cannot manage if you keep
your head, surround yourself with good people, gather and confirm the facts,
identify the audiences or stakeholders you need to reach, and have a crisis
operations and communications plan ready to activate at a moment’s notice.
In this opening chapter, we provide definitions and examples of crises
that have devastated community colleges and other institutions of higher
education. In subsequent chapters, we offer proven techniques and strate-
gies—supported by examples—that will help you manage the crises you are
likely to face sometime in your career.
What Is a Crisis?
Endowments are not growing. There is more competition for faculty and staff.
Test scores are slipping, and the debate team is off to a losing season. Those
problems are just that: problems, a challenge, but not a crisis.
For the discussion that follows, we define a crisisas an event or issue
that triggers negative stakeholder reactions that affect the college’s reputa-
tion, financial strength, and ability to carry out its mission.
Based on years of research and experience, the Institute for Crisis
Management (ICM) has determined that there are four types of crises in high-
er education: sudden, bizarre, perceptual,and smoldering.
What Is a Crisis and Why Should I Care?1
Hair-Raising Headlines!
These actual newspaper headlines and leads are just a drop-in-the-bucket sample of the kinds
of crises that strike community colleges and other institutions of higher learning every year.
• A California Community College student according to the Federal Emergency
was taken into custody and 14,000 De Management Agency.
Anza College students and staff were
• A college president was accused of falsi-
evacuated.
fying his credentials, and a professor
• Jefferson (Kentucky) Community from his own staff created a Web site
College was threatened with loss of calling the new president a fraud. The
accreditation. Board of Trustees decided to stand
behind their choice but did not explain
• A Hoosier college student got drunk, fell
why. The administration set out to fire
down, and bumped his head. His drink-
the tenured professor.
ing buddies carried him to his room and
put him to bed to sleep it off. Instead, • Critics say Oakland Community College
his brain started swelling, and he died in wasted thousands.
his bed several days later.
• Lawsuits increase as campus attacks
• The former Dean of Student Development do; colleges scramble to improve
at Central Methodist College in Fayette, security.
MO, faces charges of starting two fires at
• Community Colleges of Spokane criti-
the school.
cized for hiring decision; African
• In fact, there are an estimated 1,700 American groups says SCC chief should
fires on U.S. college campuses annually, have gotten job.
The Sudden Crisis
The sudden crisis is the type most people think about: fires, explosions, nat-
ural disasters, violence on campus, and, now, terrorist attacks. These kinds
of crises usually make a splash in the headlines and on local television
news; most organizations rise to the occasion or at the least muddle their
way through them.
A sudden crisis occurs without warning and generates news coverage
that can adversely affect:
• your faculty, staff, students, alumni, suppliers, and
other publics
• your offices, classrooms, infrastructure, or other assets
• your budget, fundraising, endowment, and investments
2 Before Crisis Hits
• your reputation—and ultimately your community col-
lege’s ability to recruit staff and students and maintain
alumni support
Many colleges have operational crisis plans that cover sudden crises
such as building fires or laboratory explosions. These institutions stage mock
crises or other kinds of tests to gauge the worth of these plans.
The Bizarre Crisis The Many Faces
Unlike the sudden crisis, you cannot of Sudden Crises
plan for a bizarre crisis. For instance, at
Sudden crises can take diverse forms.
an Indiana college, a student was
Here are some examples:
crushed between two elevators in a
campus building. The investigation • A campus-related accident results
uncovered the sport of “elevator surf- in significant property damage.
ing,” in which a student climbs through • A member of your campus commu-
the emergency door in the ceiling of an nity or a prominent visitor dies or
suffers a serious illness or injury.
elevator car and rides up and down the
elevator shaft on top of the car. • Your community college is the
source of a discharge of dangerous
chemicals or other environmentally
The Perceptual Crisis
hazardous materials.
Like the bizarre crisis, the perceptual
• Accidents at your community col-
crisis is hard to anticipate in your
lege cause the disruption of com-
crisis operations or communications puter, telephone, or utility service in
planning. surrounding areas.
In the corporate world, Proctor & • Your community college suffers a
significant reduction in electrical
Gamble (P & G) coped with a perceptu-
power or other services essential to
al crisis for decades. Every few years,
its functioning.
someone would reignite the rumor that
• A natural disaster disrupts opera-
P & G’s stars-and-moons corporate logo
tions and endangers the lives of
was a sign of the devil and conclude students, faculty, and staff.
that P & G was run by devil wor-
• An unexpected job action or labor
shipers. This usually led to calls for a stoppage disrupts campus
boycott of P & G products. functions.
Higher education is not exempt • Workplace violence occurs that
from perceptual crises. For example, involves faculty, staff, students, or
visitors.
there are small institutions of high
What Is a Crisis and Why Should I Care? 3
quality that constantly fight the misperception that because they are small
they cannot offer a good education.
The Smoldering Crisis
The most likely type of crisis to challenge you as chief administrator of a
community college is the smoldering crisis.
A smoldering crisis starts out small and internal, usually between two
people, and simmers or smolders just out of public view for days, weeks, or
even longer. It does not become a real crisis until one or more of your stake-
holder groups find out about it.
Sudden or Smoldering:
It Can Go Either Way
Crisis situations can be either sudden or smoldering, depending on the amount of
advance notice you receive and the chain of events in the crisis. Examples include:
• academic scandal • leaking of private information
• judicial action against the institution about a student
• anonymous accusation • employee involvement in a scandal
• misuse of research • student safety issue
• competitive misinformation • extortion threat
• threat from a disgruntled employee • grand jury indictment
• computer tampering • contacts by an investigative reporter
• whistle-blower threat or action • grassroots demonstration
• damaging rumor • adverse government actions
• neighbor’s crisis • indictment of an employee
• discrimination accusation • union organizing
• licensing dispute • disruption of academic schedule
by severe weather
• disclosure of confidential information
• sexual harassment allegation
• lawsuit that is likely to become
publicized • criticism by an interest group
• equipment, product, or • strike, job action, or other
service sabotage work stoppage
• false accusation • terrorist threat or action
• employee death or serious injury • illegal or unethical behavior
by an employee
4 Before Crisis Hits
It could be sexual harassment or some form of discrimination. It could
be an academic scandal: grade fixing or bad research. It could be recruiting
violations in the athletic department. Embezzlement and mismanagement
are other examples of smoldering crises.
Consequences of Crises
Whether you are dealing with a sudden, bizarre, perceptual, or smol-
dering crisis, there will be consequences.
The greatest concern is often about dollars. If your community college is
the focus of negative news, there is always the risk of financial loss. Alumni
contributions are delayed, reduced, or halted. Major benefactors have second
thoughts. Enrollment falls, and fees generated by tuition take a nosedive.
Concurrent with this decline in revenue will be the unexpected expens-
es of paying for the crisis. Every crisis has a cost, and rare is the institution
that budgets for it. For example, if a tornado takes the roof off the adminis-
tration building and flattens the main classroom building, insurance will pay
for part of the repair and replacement, but probably not all of it.
If a group of students files a lawsuit against the community college,
claiming a professor was allowed to harass them, or if a group of minority
faculty members files a lawsuit accusing the college of discrimination in its
promotion and pay policies, the legal fees will soar. If the institution loses, a
settlement will cost thousands, if not millions, of dollars. Those legal costs
and settlement fees must come from somewhere—and that somewhere is the
bottom line.
Suppose your legal counsel is sitting in your office and says you have
to find half a million dollars to cover legal fees and a settlement the judge
has recommended. Before you turn the page, stop and think back over the
current budget. Where can you cut half a million dollars? What program can
you eliminate or scale back? How many staff and faculty members can you
lay off and still meet your students’ needs?
Crises make and break careers. To be successful, top administrators
must have the support of alumni, board of trustees, faculty, staff, and stu-
dents. A poorly managed crisis leads to mistrust of the administration and
ultimately to a change in leadership.
The reputation of the college and its president suffers when a crisis
strikes. The longer the crisis goes on, the more damage it does, and the
harder it is to get under control and overcome.
What Is a Crisis and Why Should I Care? 5
